Sa bai dee from Luang Prabang

After two flights from Hoi An, we reached Luang Prabang, Laos in the evening. Most of the lights in the airport were turned off which was a bit creepy. We got our visas right before passport control for $36. Our hotel (or shall I say guesthouse) hadn't responded to our emails for pick-up so we bought a ticket and hopped into a taxi. Surprisingly, there's a formal system like in NYC which was a relief since getting ripped off was no longer an issue.

The last two days in the town have been chill yet eventful. Yesterday we walked around town and along the Mekong River which was very peaceful. Then I sent some postcards (to a lucky few whose addresses I could remember, sad to say that it wasn't as many as I would have liked!). Very curious to see how long the postcards take to get back to the US. Hit up a spa (Spa Garden) for a foot massage. The girl who worked on me, Meo, is a 19 year old girl studying law, who is the eldest of 7 children. She was very sweet and asked for my email address so we could become facebook friends!

On the Nam Khan River

Adventure #4: We had signed up for a Sunset Cruise on the Mekong River. Sounds nice right? Yeah, apparently we are the only ones who thought so. We showed up the tour office and they looked a bit confused to see us. So we showed them our tickets and they had a young man escort us to the boat. Except we literally did not exchange a word or know where he was taking us. We just followed. We tend to do that a lot here. He took us down a "death trap," meaning no stairs, huge incline and just dirt and rocks everywhere. I slipped a few times but managed to catch myself just in time. Dangerous! And once we got the boat, there was no one there but us. Private cruise for around $5.50 each. And to think, they must still be making a profit when there were only two of us on it. Ridiculous.

We hit up the infamous night market and night food stalls which starts at dusk and runs until about 10 pm. Bought a few things, ate some dinner and crashed since we had to wake up early today.

Today we took an hour ride outside of Luang Prabang in a tuk tuk, with two medical students from SF, for a morning exploring the Pak Ou Caves and then the Elephant Village. The Pak Ou Caves were nice and the steps to get there were steep. With the humidity, we are already melting each moment of the day, so some steps just made all the more worse. Can't say I'm not getting my exercise in!

 Adventure #5: Elephants. Het's elephant, Sir-Spits-A-Lot, didn't wait to start the tricks. He threw up a bunch of dirt all over Het and since he was on a sneezing fit it was even more of a mess. So for an hour, Sir Spits-A-Lot sneezed and sneezed and sneezed, all of it hitting Het in the face. Gross to have an elephants sneezy bits all over you. Mine did it a few times but not as much. To make the situation even more insane, right when we were about to finish up the ride, the elephants decided to walk through muddy water. And guess who got sprayed with muddy water all over? You got it, Het. What a ride, literally!

We will see some of the Wats today and go back to the night market. After that, off to Siem Reap tomorrow!